Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom by Richard Smoley
This groundbreaking work by Richard Smoley, author of fourteen books including Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism and Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition, presents the Jewish mystical teaching in a fresh new light.
Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom offers a guide to the esoteric tradition that will serve as a concise introduction for beginners. But it also presents never-before-published insights on the Sefer Yetzirah (“Book of Formation”), the oldest, most admired, but one of the most cryptic Kabbalistic texts that will bring a fresh perspective on this work even for advanced students.
Richard Smoley has incorporated the fruits of fifty years of Kabbalistic study and practice and discusses how the tradition has spread from its Jewish roots to widespread use in present-day Western mysticism.
About Richard Smoley
Richard Smoley was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1956. He earned his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in classics at Harvard University. He went on to Oxford University, where he received a second bachelor’s degree from the Honour School of Literae Humaniores and an M.A. in 1985.
While Smoley was at Oxford, he came in contact with a small group that was studying the Kabbalah, co-founded by the British Kabbalist and author Warren Kenton (Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi), Smoley subsequently started Kabbalah groups along similar lines in San Francisco, New York, and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Praise for Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom
Richard Smoley understands the power of kabbalistic diagrams. They do not illustrate ideas so much as enact them, serving as instruments of thought and practice. Drawing on fifty years of study and teaching, he offers a lucid account of the Tree of Life as it has been received in the modern Western esoteric tradition. Readers are invited to learn its structures, draw its forms, and work with them. Smoley writes with the assurance of a seasoned practitioner and the clarity of an accomplished teacher.
J.H. Chajes, Chajes, Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought, University of Haifa; author of The Kabbalistic Tree
Richard Smoley’s Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom weaves Kabbalah’s often disparate threads into a unified tapestry that is at once modern yet grounded in tradition. With meditations and other exercises at the end of each chapter, this book beckons practitioners to explore and experience the enduring mysteries of Kabbalah.
Richard Kaczynski, author of Mind over Magick: The Psychology of Ritual Magick and Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley
I too studied with Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi and, as co-publisher of his books, would say I was pretty familiar with all of his teachings. However I am still learning, and there is much in Richard’s book that even after thirty years of being a Kabbalist, I did not previously know or understand. I’ll add too that I have discovered more about Kabbalah from this book than from reading all twelve volumes of the Pritzker Zohar. And it is far more enjoyable!
Maggy Whitehouse, author of Kabbalah & Healing and A Woman’s Worth
This is a truly amazing book. Kabbalah is not for the faint of heart. In high school, my Orthodox rabbi secretly taught me to use a Kabbalistic text to query angels in various heavenly realms. Richard Smoley is like my rabbi, with one major difference: he explains Kabbalah with diagrams and insights that clarify the esoteric; my rabbi only taught me to speak with angels. Read Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom. Experiment with its practices. Try not to faint.
Rabbi Rami Shapiro, author of Love in the Bible
At last—here is the urgently needed public-facing work on Kabbalah by an esoteric scholar of the highest standing. Richard Smoley—a thinker’s thinker—explains the tradition in its outer and inner facets, encompassing history, practice, cosmology, symbolism, comparative religion, and spiritual-psychological insight. I cannot name a more singularly reliable guide and digest—or an abler author, whose insights arise from decades of Kabbalistic study. At once practical and erudite, Richard’s richly illustrated exploration belongs in the hands and hearts of every seeker.
Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning historian
Richard Smoley brings both scholarship and personal experience to this warm and wise account of the Kabbalistic tradition. Newcomers will find it easy to engage with, and those already familiar with Kabbalah will appreciate its fresh insights.
Cherry Gilchrist, author of The Tree of Life Oracle and Alchemy: The Great Work
This book is an inspiring guide to the principles of Kabbalah. It makes abstract concepts alive and real, with exercises for practical application of Kabbalistic knowledge to personal development. Its refreshing approach is saying: “Look again, there is more to consider.”
Rebekah Kenton, author of Memoirs, Selected Poems